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POLITICAL PARTIES 

in 

WESTERN GERMANY 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
EUROPEAN AFFAIRS DIVISION 






The generosity of the Oberlaender Trust, Philadelphia, 
has enabled the Library of Congress to put into oper¬ 
ation a program of Foreign Consultants in Germany* 

One of the main duties of the Foreign Consultant is to 
report on the general trends in his subject field and 
on the special attention given to particular aspects, 
in short, to prepare a picture of the intellectual 
progress in his area of responsibility. 


Surveys of intellectual life in Western Germany 
published previously in this series by Foreign 
Consultants are: 

Political Science and Economics in Western 
Germany, by Ernst Wilhelm Meyer* 

The Social Sciences in Western Germany, by 
DoIf Sternberger. 

The Natural Sciences and German Universities, 
by Kurt Ueberreiter. 

Research in Germany on Pressing Social 
Problems, by Do If Sternberger. 


POLITICAL PARTIES 

in 

WESTERN GERMANY 


by 

Ernest Wilhelm Meyer, Foreign Consultant to the Library of Congress 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
REFERENCE DEPARTMENT 
EUROPEAN AFFAIRS DIVISION 






















Dr. Ernst Wilhelm Meyer, who has recently 
been appointed the first full professor of political 
science in Western Germany (University of Frankfurt), 
is Foreign Consultant to the Library of Congress in the 
field of Political Science and Economics. He has sub¬ 
mitted this report in fulfillment of the duties 
connected with his appointment. In his first report 
on Eq3,iLUe*4 9R4 Eo g n(?mj,os In Weptspi formnny, 

issued by this Division in April 1950, Dr. Meyer pre¬ 
sented an overall picture of activities in his field, 
of individuals and organizations at work. 

In this seoond report investigation is 
centered on a particular aspect of political science, 
namely present-day political parties in Western 
Germany. The manusoript has undergone only minor 
editorial changes in order to present a survey of the 
German political soene as well as the analytical 
viewpoint of a German political scientist. 


January 1951 


Harry J. Krould, Chief 
European Affairs Division 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 


I. Peculiarities of the German 

Situation 1 

II. Electoral Laws 4 

III. The Parties of the Expellees 7 

IV. The Communist Party 10 

V. The Christian Democratic Union 12 

VI. The Social Democratic Party 20 

VII. The Free Democratic Party 26 

'—.VIII. The German Party 29 

IX. Center Party - Bavarian Party 29 

X. Extreme "Right Wing" Groups 31 

XI. Pressure Groups 32 

XII. Coalition Governments 34 

XIII. Frequent Criticisms of the Parties 36 

XIV. Berlin 40 

XV. Concluding Remarks 40 

Appendix 


43 








































\ 















* 














4* 
























POLITICAL PARTIES 
in 

WESTERN GERMANY 
I 

Peculiarities of the German Situation 

To win a picture of the political parties 
in Western Germany it is necessary, first, to be 
aware that Germany is no democracy yet, but at best is 
on the way towards it. Undisputably it belongs to the 
essence of democracy that sovereignty emanates from 
and rests with the people. During the recent past 
in Germany it has emanated from and rested with 
foreign occupying powers to a large extent. This is 
also of particular signficance for the German politi¬ 
cal parties. The foreign occupying powers have 
reserved many important decisions including a veto 
power with respect to all legislation. Whether they 
exercise this right or not it cannot but impair the 
authority not only of the German government itself 
but also of the political parties upon the functioning 
of which, including that of the "loyal opposition," 
government is based. In all probability there would 
be a considerably different German political party 
life without the foreign occupation of Germany. How 
far-reaching the influence of the occupation powers 
in matters of party life proves to be can, for 
instance, be concluded from the fact that in the 
American zone of occupation, probably within the 
framework of the "re-education program," the parties 
for a long time were not permitted to issue daily 
newspapers, but merely periodicals and information 
sheets. 


But above all, without foreign occupation 
Germany would not be partitioned. This partition 
was not created by a democratic will of the people 
and not by the volition but rather the lack of 
volition of the occupying powers. This partition, 
however, is of tremendous influence on German 
political party life. The existing government in 


Western Germany is based upon a coalition of three 
parties having a narrow parliamentary majority while 
the Social Democratic Party forms the main opposition* 
It is possible, if not probable, that without the 
partition of Germany the Social Democratic Party, 
instead of the Christian Democratic Party, would have 
become the strongest party in parliament. It needs no 
explanation how consequential this might have been for 
German foreign and domestic, economic and cultural, 
policy. 


let even such factors as the lack of 
sovereignty and the partition of Germany are not 
sufficient to fully comprehend the precariousness and 
artificialness of present-day German political party 
structure and life. Originally, in order to prevent 
the reemergenoe of national socialist activities, 
parties were submitted to a specific lioense system. 

(See Chapter VII, page 60 in Deutschland-Jahrbuch 1949 . 
editors Dr. Klaus Mehnert and Dr. Heinrich Schulte, 
West-Verlag, Essen.) Now it can be questioned whether 
political parties in Germany have not emerged too 
early or at least should not have been organized 
merely on a local basis instead of a Laender (state) or 
even Bundes (federal, national) basis, or should not in 
the interest of their own prestige have been submitted 
to a lengthier period of maturation. Anyhow, the 
moment they were formed it could but hurt their 
prestige with the people at large that they needed at 
that time a license from the occupation authorities. 
Besides, under the circumstances not even the licensed 
parties could feel themselves entirely free in their 
activities. For though licensed, the parties had the 
Damocles sword of intervention of the occupying powers 
hanging over them, just as the veto power of the 
American President or the judicial review of the 
American Supreme Court wields influence not only when 
exercised but also as a result of such possibility. 

Neither are the parties in a position to 
provide on their own part the social and political 
"climate" which according to all findings of political 
science is needed for the creation of a healthy, strong, 
independent party life. On the contrary, in Ger many 
the political climate is most unfavorable, more un¬ 
favorable than perhaps in any other part of the west. 
This can be imagined by those who are aware of the fact 
that every fifth or sixth German belongs to the so- 
called expellees. It is hard to express the situation 
to someone in the United States who has not lived 


- 2 - 



through the experiences of a partitioned country with 
large sections bombed out, under occupation, and with 
one fifth of the population expelled from former homes. 
He, thereupon, would have to try to realize how such 
parts of the American population would think 
politically, how far they could think in terms of the 
Democratic or the Republican Party. Moreover, he 
would have to take into consideration that in the 
United States, in spite of cutting off large parts of 
its area, still other wide and almost unpopulated 
sections would be available for resettlement of those 
twenty-five to thirty million American expellees, 
whereas the German expellees had to find refuge in 
most densely populated and very small territories. 

In other words, the development of the 
German political parties is in no way dependent only 
on themselves, but also on many factors more or less 
beyond party influences, and every examination of the 
German political parties would lead to very wrong 
conclusions if such basic facts were not stressed 
right from the beginning. The mere reference to them 
leads to an understanding of the problematic party 
situation in present-day Germany. Of course, always 
and everywhere, domestic policy is dependent also 
upon foreign political conditions, but this is 
particularly true regarding present-day Germany. 

In addition, during the national socialist 
regime millions of the German manhood have died on the 
battlefields, tens of thousands in concentration camps 
and on scaffolds, and as many have their physical and 
mental strength impaired, their nerves forever ruined. 
Where are "the men of the 20th of July," the Karl 
Goerdelers or the Wilhelm Leuschners, the Dietrich 
Bonhoeffers and Ulrich von Hassels, and who can 
venture to say how political party life would have 
developed with them still alive? Their generation has 
virtually been decimated to an extent that German 
political party life of today is a fragment of what it 
had been in the Weimar and Bismarck eras. 

The Bonn Basic Law deals directly with 
political parties only in the articles 21 and 40, 
according to whicn parties endangering the existence 
of the Republic can be outlawed and elections have to 
be universal, direct, free, equal, and secret. 


- 3 - 


II 


Electoral Laws 

In spite of the grave peculiarities of the 
German situation the development of the German parties 
is, of course, largely dependent also upon German 
domestic policy as such and, in particular, very 
basically upon the kind of electoral law in force, just 
as in America and Great Britain. 

To be sure, a definite federal electoral law 
does not exist yet. The electoral law which consti¬ 
tuted the basis for the first elections to the Federal 
Diet is only provisional and is to be replaced by a new 
electoral law to be worked out by the Federal Diet 
itself. On the other hand, it seems that large parts 
of the provisional law will become part of the definite 
law. 


The provisional law is a mixture of the 
majority and the proportional representation system, 
though in the last analysis the latter one is pre¬ 
dominant. ( See : No. 150 of the Beitrage zur Statiatik . 
edited by Das Bayerische Statistische Landesamt, quoted 
by E. P. Walk in Per Wahler . No. 7, 1950, p. 17, edited 
by the Deutsche Wahler-Gesellschaft (German Voters* 
League) in Frankfurt a/k., Beethovenstr. 63.) This is 
the reason why one calls it a "mixed or modified 
proportional representation system. 11 The occupants of 
60 per cent of the seats in the Federal Diet are chosen 
in single member districts by relative majority, i.e., 
by eliminating run-off elections. The other 40 per 
cent of the seats are allotted, roughly speaking, by 
summing up and distributing the remaining votes by way 
of Laender (state) lists. There is no federal list. 

If the American or British relative majority system had 
been accepted, the party composition of the Federal 
Diet would be very different from what it is. In that 
case the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), headed by 
Konrad Adenauer, would have 47 per cent; the Social 
Democratic Party (SPD), headed by Kurt Schumacher, 
would have 40 per cent; the Free Democratic Party (FDP), 
headed by Franz Bluecher, would have 5 per cent; and 
five other groups, na m ely, the Bavarian Party (BP), 
the German Party (DP), and independent members would 
have 5 per cent, 2 per cent, and 1 per cent of the 
seats, respectively. The Center Party (Zentrum), the 


- 4 - 




Economic Reconstruction Party (Wirtschaftliche 
Aufbauvereinigung), the German Right Party (Deutsche 
Rechtspartei) and the Communist Party (KPD) would have 
gained no seats in the Federal Diet. This means that 
the present Adenauer coalition composed of the CDU, 
the FDP and the DP would be confronted with an 
opposition composed of merely the SPD and the 
Bavarian Party, the few independent members not being 
counted. 


In 1945, right after the destruction of the 
national socialist system tendencies in favor of a 
strictly relative majority electoral law along Ameri¬ 
can and British patterns were very strong. Later 
these tendencies—partly under the influence of 
important Americans believing in proportional 
representation—were weakened, a fact which afterwards 
contributed greatly to the gradual formation of almost 
as many parties as existed when Hitler came to power. 
Subsequently, a reversed trend set in again, but, as 
indicated, not in sufficient strength, with the result 
that merely the "modified" proportional representation 
system was established on the federal basis. 

The developments in the centrally located 
state of Hesse have been typical for the changing 
trends regarding the electoral law. After the initial 
strong trend towards the majority electoral law had 
receded, the land of Hesse made proportional repre¬ 
sentation part even of its constitution. Then it came 
to regret this inclusion and arranged for a plebiscite 
in consequence of which proportional representation 
was removed from the constitution and in Hesse, too, 
a "modified" proportional representation system was 
established. (For details see the well-edited 
periodical Per Wahler quoted above. The German 
Voters* League, since its foundation, has constantly 
and, in part successfully, favored the majority system} 

The present electoral law of Hesse is 
typical also of other remarkable tendencies of general 
character, namely: (a) to prevent new parties from 
gaining a foothold in parliament in spite of pro¬ 
portional representation clauses in the electoral 
law and (b) to eliminate extreme rightist and leftist 
(especially the KPD) parties. This twofold purpose is 
served by three ouite ingenious special clauses of the 
electoral law. ( See the mimeographed "Hessischer 
Schnelldienst," published by the Hessisches 
Statistisches Landesamt in Wiesbaden, Bahnhofstr. 53, 


- 5 - 



issue of November 20, 1950, page 3.) 

1. Landeserganztingsvorschlage (state reserve 
lists) can be submitted only by parties which 
have nominated candidates in all of the 48 
single member districts, 

2. Such nominations, if made by new parties, 
have to carry 300 signatures of voters 
residing in the particular single member 
district. Parties already represented in the 
Diet need, by contrast, only three signatures 
of the Land party leadership. 

3. In order to enjoy the advantages of the 
Landeserganzungsvorschlag the party in 
addition must have received 5 per cent of 
all the valid votes. 

Whereas the latter clause seems to be proper 
in order to avoid an abundance of splinter Darties, 
the second clause presents a condition which for 
evident reasons can hardly be fulfilled at all by new 
parties, especially not by parties extremely left or 
right of radical character or by parties which the 
government or the old parties like to term radical. 

In Bavaria every voter has two votes, one for 
a candidate in a single member district, the second one 
for a candidate on the reserve list of a "Krais," which 
is composed of several single member districts. In 
order to be represented in the Bavarian Diet, a party 
has to get at least 10 per cent of the votes in at least 
one "Krais." 

From the foregoing it follows that in Germany 
also the composition of the parliament is not a reliable 
indication of the political sentiments of the people, a 
fact which, as the adherents of the majority system 
stress, need not be deplored, but which nevertheless 
has to be kept in mind, especially regarding the 
German party situation which is still in the early 
stages of formation. 


- 6 - 


The Parties of the Expellees 


The BHE, Bund der Heimatvertriebenen und 
Entreohteten (League of the Expellees and Disen¬ 
franchised) , made its first appearance as a political 
party in the State Diet elections held on July 9, 
1950, for the Land Schleswig-Holstein. It received 
307,000 votes, which is 23.4 per cent of all votes, 
almost as many as the SPD which got 360,000. This 
success was achieved after only a rather short period 
of organizational and electioneering work. The party 
is headed by Waldemar Kraft. There are a few special 
political features in Schleswig-Holstein: it has an 
especially large number of expellees living in a 
predominantly agricultural country, with a large 
number of unemployed, of which the percentage of 
expellees is highly disproportionate. In other 
Laender the general economic and financial situation 
of the expellees is comparatively better. Nonethe¬ 
less, the importance of the success of this newly- 
formed party of Waldemar Kraft was immediately 
recognized inside and outside Germany. ( See , e.g., 
the Hew York Times of July 11, 1950; the "Information 
Letter" of the Frankfurter Hefte . edited by Eugen 
Kogon, 53 Schaumainkai, Frankfurt a/to., issue of 
August 1, 1950, pages 8-12; the mimeographed 
n InforraatiGn8dienst ,! of the Gottinger Arbeitskreis, 
Gottingen, BQrgerstr. 32, of July 13, 1950, page 2; 
the mimeographed "Europaische Korrespondenz," 
SchlQchtenVnessen, of July 27, 1950.) 

Since then similar parties have emerged in 
Hesse, Wuerttemberg-Baden and Bavaria. 

In Hesse, for the elections to the Hessian 
Diet held on November 19, 1950, the BHE had formed a 
coalition with the Free Democratic Party. Therefore, 
the votes gathered by the BHE cannot be given 
separately, but the BHE succeeded in getting 8 seats 
(out of 80) in the Diet, i.e., 10 per cent of all 
seats. 


In Wuerttemberg-Baden, at elections likewise 
held on November 19, 1950, the BHE received 14*7 per 
cent of all votes and got 15 seats (out of 100) in the 
Diet. 


- 7 - 




In Bavaria, at elections of November 26, 

1950 , it got 12.3 per cent of the votes and 26 members 
in the Diet (out of 204). 

According to the distinguished member of the 
faculty of law of the University of Gottingen, 

Professor Dr. Herbert Kraus, these (or related) parties 
would have sent at least 20 deputies into the Federal 
Diet instead of the present three, had it not been 
made impossible by clauses, such as the ones previously 
mentioned, which prevented them from enjoying the 
advantages granted by the state reserve lists. Prof. 

Dr. Herbert Kraus argued in an opinion published about 
the federal electoral law on June 15, 1949, that the 
federal provisional electoral law therefore has to be 
considered unconstitutional. 

There can be no doubt that the foreign 
military governments in Germany look at the development 
of expellees' parties with disfavor, apparently viewing 
them as potential centers of communism. Up to now, 
however, such fears have not proved to be justified. 
Quite the opposite seems to be correct. It constitutes 
one of the most striking features of postwar Germany 
that the expellees—exceptions granted—have been 
rather conservative in their political attitude and 
almost Immune from communism, perhaps for the reason 
that they generally attribute to communist Russia the 
loss of their homelands. On the other hand, the 
possibility cannot be excluded that the expellees, 
though not turning towards communism as such, may in 
the future adhere to some kind of national bolshevism 
or to some other nationalistic radicalism. But it 
may be hardly justifiable to base policy on anticipa¬ 
tion of such a development. For the time being, the 
amazing thing is, as said, not the existence of 
tendencies towards radicalism, but just the absence or 
weakness of such tendencies. Recently the German 
Sociological Society at its yearly meeting held at 
Detmold dealt with the problem of expellees. Reports 
were made by Prof. Dr. Fedor Stepun, Munich, himself 
a Russian emigrant, and by Prof. Dr. A. Schelsky, 
Hamburg. The latter described as an attitude prevailing 
among expellees, according to investigations made by 
the Akademie fur Gemeinschaftswirtschaft in Hamburg, a 
trend towards "Einigelung," a kind of political de¬ 
tachment, of expellee isolationism, of "without me" 
attitude. But at the meeting this analysis was 
vigorously disputed. Certainly, in view of the forma¬ 
tion and successes of the BHE parties, it appears 


- 8 - 


difficult to apeak of "Einigelung" or lack of politi¬ 
cal interest on the part of the expellees. 

It may be added that future BHE parties are 
in the process of formation, including in Lower 
Saxony, the state neighboring on Schleswig-Holstein. 

Hot all of the expellees are united under the banner 
of the new BHE parties. However, a number of them 
have remained faithful to the old parties. 

The expellees, of course, want to return to 
their homelands which were annexed by Soviet Russia 
and Poland. They want a redistribution of property 
in Germany fairer, in their opinion, than the 
federal government so far has envisaged. The core of 
their political attitude can be regarded as result of 
a very natural human reaction which, in a similar case, 
the average American, Frenchman and Britisher, too, 
very probably would have had. 

In Schleswig-Holstein the BHE has entered 
into a coalition with the CDU, FDP and BP; Waldemar 
Kraft has accepted the post of Deputy Prime Minister 
and Minister of Finance. In Bavaria, the BHE had 
formed an election block with the Deutsche Gemein- 
sohaft, headed by August Haussleiter, who occasionally, 
rightly or wrongly, is accused of nationalistic 
tendencies. After the election it joined the coalition 
government of the CSU and SPD, certainly not a testi¬ 
mony of radicalism. In Hesse, the block of the BHE 
and FDP, formed merely for election purposes, came to 
an end right after the elections according to official 
statements of both parties concerned. In Wuerttemberg- 
Baden, the further policy of the BHE has not yet 
become sufficiently discernible. 

In spite of the apparent successes of the 
BHE parties, it has to be emphasized that the successes 
won in Hesse, Wuerttemberg-Baden, and Bavaria are not 
of the landslide variety as in Schleswig-Holstein. 

Maybe additional followers of the BHE will, however, 
still come from other parts of the population, 
expeoially from people whose fortunes have been 
destroyed by bombing or other events of the war period. 
Although this is possible, it is by no means assured. 


- 9 - 



IV 


The Communist Party 


The Communist Party in Western Germany (KPD) 
has developed into a splinter party. In the elections 
to the Federal Diet (Bundestag) held on August 14, 

1949, it gathered 1,360,000 votes (5.7 per cent and 

15 mandates). Since then it has suffered great losses. 
In Hesse, on November 19, 1950, the KPD received only 
87,000 votes or 427 per cent in comparison with 
142,000 votes or 6.7 per cent at the Bundestag 
elections. In Wuerttemberg-Baden, on November 19, 

1950, it received 70,000 votes or 4.9 per cent; in 
Bavaria, on November 26, 1950, 178,000 votes or 1.9 per 
cent. In none of these three Laender, therefore, is 
the Communist Party represented in parliament. 

The party has never succeeded in making 
inroads into the Social Democratic Party (SPD). It has 
neither succeeded in bringing about or provoking even 
the semblance of a major interest in a merger of the 
SPD and KPD for the establishment of an SED, 
Sozialistisohe Kinheitspartei Deutschlands (United 
Socialist Party), which it has formed in the Soviet- 
oocupied tone of Germany. 

However, the ia$>ortance of the KPD is, of 
course, not sufficiently reflected by its non-repre¬ 
sentation in parliament, as revolutionary ideas have 
always been fostered outside parliament also and by 
minorities, including very small ones. 

Moreover, regarding future developments of 
the party, much will depend upon the general political, 
economic, and social conditions whioh, in all 
probability, cannot be expected to be very bright ones 
in postwar Germany. It should, furthermore, not be 
overlooked that the KPD is at least the party most 
outspoken in demanding a reunited Germany and it may 
benefit therefrom should the otter parties in this 
respect become or be believed to have become less firm 
or unsuccessful. 

At least the possibility cannot be excluded 
that one day the Communist Party will recover from its 
present near-eclipse in Western Germany. Apparently, 
it is this apprehension whioh influences people to 


- 10 - 


advocate outlawing the KPD as a revolutionary party in 
accordance with the Bonn Basic Law. This would 
necessitate, likewise according to the Basic Law, the 
previous establishment of the Constitutional Supreme 
Court provided for in the Basic Law. Other people 
feel that by maneuvers of this kind the party cannot 
be kept down successfully, but will, in the long run, 
rather be strengthened, as was the case with the SPD 
when it was outlawed in the Bismarck Reich. The 
federal government favors the insertion of anti¬ 
communist provisions in the Federal Penal Code. 

Against the latter tendency many jurists have taken 
a stand, among them the Bavarian Minister of Justice, 
Dr. Joseph Mueller, on the occasion of the 1950 Deut- 
scher Juristentag (Convention of German Jurists). 
Acoording to press reports he oalled the federal draft 
for such a revised Penal Code a "Bankrotterlarung der 
Demokratie" (declaration of bankruptcy on the part of 
democracy) and "ein Abgleiten in ein politisches 
Gesinnungsstrafrecht" (a deterioration into a 
politically opinionated Penal Code), whereby the 
members of the Courts would be transformed from 
judges into a kind of police offieer. He felt that the 
Weimar Republic did not come to ruin because of lack 
of paragraphs but because of lack of an energetic 
policy of its leaders. "No constitution," he declared, 
amid wide consent at the convention, "can be protected 
by means of a Penal Code," especially if this were to 
involve violation of the basic rights of the indi¬ 
vidual. 


Chi September 19, 1950, the federal govern¬ 
ment in a Cabinet meeting resolved to take measures to 
remove from governmental service both left and right 
wing radicals. Organisations of such character were 
specified and membership in them was forbidden to 
governmental officials and employees. Listed on the 
left were: KPD, Sozialdemokratische Aktion, Freie 
Deutsche Jugend, Vereinigung der Sowj et-Freunde, 
Gesellschaft sum Studium der Xultur der Sowjetunion, 
Kulturbund zur demokratisohen Erneuerung Deutschlands, 
Gesaartdeutsche Arbeitskreis fSr Land-und Forstwirt- 
schaft, Komi tee der Kampfer ftfr den Frieden, Komi tee 
der jungen Friedenskampfer, Vereinigung der Verfolgten 
des Naziregimes, Rationale Front; on the right: 
Sozialistische Reichspartei, the so-called "Schwarze 
Front" (Otto Strasser Movement). 


- 11 - 


The measures taken so far against the KPD 
are also disapproved of by those who argue, that by 
outlawing the party, or by reliance on the Penal Code, 
or on electoral law techniques, or on not granting the 
party admission to assembly-halls, or on suppressing 
its press and publishing firms, etc*, not merely much 
needed interest in the knowledge of communism could be 
impaired, but also, the energy of ideologically 
combating communist philosophy could be paralyzed. 

It is sometimes stated that those voters who 
had been lost by the Communist Party voted social 
democratic. let for several reasons this seems in¬ 
correct. It can be supposed rather that those who 
left the Communist fold did not go to the election 
polls at all. 

Up to now signs of "Titoisa 11 amidst the 
German KPD have not become visible. 


V 

The Christian Democratic Union 

At the first election to a Western German 
Federal parliament, on August 14, 1949, the 
Christlich-Demokratische Union (CDU) and its Bavarian 
sister-party, the Christlich-Soziale Union (CSU), 
combined, emerged as the strongest German party. They 
received 7,360,000 votes (31 per cent) and sent 139 
members to the Federal Diet. The Social Democratic 
Party (SPD) was the second strongest, securing 7 
million votes (29.2 per cent) and 131 members, the 
Free Democratic Party (FDP) 2,800,000 votes (11.9 per 
cent) and 52 members. On the basis of these results 
it can be stated that the moderate parties of center, 
left, and right won an overwhelming victory, getting 
altogether about three quarters of all votes. This is 
confirmed by the fact that other parties also repre¬ 
sented in the Diet may well be reckoned among the 
moderate ones. Under such circumstances there is no 
doubt that the vast majority of the German people have 
expressed thereby a longing for a peaceful development 
of their future. 

The Christian Democratic Party has much in 
common with the former Center Party, of which 
Chancellor Dr. Heinrich Bruening was the leader, until 
the national socialist ascent to power. It differs, 


- 12 - 


however, from the Center Party in so far as the 
Center Party was almost exclusively a Catholic Party, 
whereas the CDU strives to combine Protestants, 
Catholics and Jews. Thereby it wants to continue 
especially that exemplary Catholic and Protestant 
cooperation which has been the result Of the common 
struggle against totalitarian national socialism, a 
cooperation which the Catholic Church Gazette of 
Berlin at that time called "the brotherhood in arms." 

To some extent the CDU has succeeded in this 
purpose. About 40 of its deputies in the Federal Diet 
belong to the Protestant faith. The large majority of 
the CDU representatives in the Federal Diet adhere, 
however, to the Catholic faith. More recently the 
Protestant influence in the party has been weakened 
for two reasons: first, the party leader, Chancellor 
Dr. Konrad Adenauer, repeatedly has been accused of 
conducting his policy under primarily Catholic 
influences; second, Pastor Martin Niemoeller, who has 
a considerable following among Protestants, came into 
sharp conflict with the Chancellor, mainly for reasons 
of foreign policy. He charged him with hampering the 
reunification of Germany and dangerously fostering 
German rearmament without a mandate from the people. 
Particularly in Hesse, many Protestants who originally 
voted for the CDU have turned away from it, in large 
part even before Pastor Niemoeller started to criti¬ 
cize the Chancellor's policy. It seems that the 
influence of the Protestant theologian Karl Barth, who 
at a very early stage spoke out against parties of 
religious emphasis, had something to do with this 
kind of revolt of sections of Protestants against the 
CDU. On the other hand, prominent Protestants are 
among the leading members of the party, among them 
Dr. Hermann Ehlers, the president of the Federal Diet, 
who during the period of National Socialism was an 
active member of Niemoeller's Confessional Church, and 
Dr. Eugen Gertenmaier, director of the Evangelische 
Hilfswerk. Besides, the high percentage of votes which 
the CDU continues to gather in regions like northern 
Germany, can be explained only by the fact that a large 
part of the Protestants continue to vote for the CDU. 
Therefore, it appears premature to deny the possibil¬ 
ity of further cooperation between Protestants and 
Catholics within the ranks of the CDU. 


- 13 - 



Like Christian democratic parties of other 
countries the CDU does not claim any monopoly for the 
conduct of a policy inspired by Christian commandments 
and principles. Furthermore, it does formally reject 
clerical directives in the field of politics. Just as, 
for instance, the Italian Christian Democratic Party 
under its founder Don Luigi Sturzo has constantly done, 
so the young German CDU demands to be judged according 
to its political program and achievements, vhioh the 
party assures are in line with or influenced by 
Christian thought. The party expresses the belief that 
only by using the Christian foundations of western 
civilization for the reconstruction also of the 
political life can there be hope of salvaging this 
civilization and of its coming to new invigoration, for, 
according to the party, the political crisis of our 
times is in the last analysis the consequence of the 
wide loss of religious convictions. It behooves 
Christian laity, the party declares, to fulfill the 
pressing task of their political reapplication. 

Based on their conviction of the Christian 
religion that recognizes eternal human sinfulness and 
imperfection, the CDU is opposed to all concentration 
of political power, be it on foreign, domestic, 
economic, or cultural grounds. In this regard the CDU 
comes closest to the American ideas of "checks and 
balances” and of separation of powers, originating 
likewise, or at least to a considerable extent, from 
religious convictions. 

Consequently the CDU advocates, on the 
economic scene, a balance between private and public 
influence. In its "Ahlener Programm" of February 3, 
1947, it favors with regard to monopolistic enterprises 
participation of the workers and of the public or/and 
the state. Recently, Dr. Gerhard Schroeder, one of the 
most prominent CDU members of the Federal Diet, 
suggested a reorganization of the German iron and steel 
industry on such a basis. In regard to this and other 
matters there are two factions within the party; one 
being more conservative and headed by Chancellor Konrad 
Adenauer, the other more progressive, and headed by 
Karl Arnold, Prime Minister of the Land Rheinland- 
Westphalia, the largest and richest of all German 
Laender• Arnold and his followers are also proponents 
of workers* "co-management" in business. 


- 14 - 


For basically the same reason—the need for 
balance of power—the CDU is one of the strongest 
proponents of federalism in Germany* This is true 
especially regarding its membership in southern 
Germany, whereas within the CDU north of the Main line 
(the river Main separating North and South Germany) the 
tendencies towards federalism are weaker. The 
Chancellor himself, originally a federalist par 
excellence, has come to experience in his policy quite 
a number of drawbacks created by the Bonn Basio Law*s 
federalistic clauses for which, however, his own party, 
as indicated, is at least co-responsible. For the 
main part the CDU is responsible also for the creation 
of the highly federalistic type of Federal Council 
(Bundesrat) through the Bonn Basic Law. This Federal 
Council, which sometimes, yet erroneously, is called a 
Second Chamber, is composed of representatives of the 
Laender governments and supposed to serve the 
federalistic ideas; up to now it has in reality often 
been dominated less by federalistic ideas than by 
party politics. 

Again influenced by the principle of balance 
of power the CDU has pursued a so-called "Social 
Market Policy," a policy characterised by economic 
liberalism without neglect of social exigencies. The 
Minister of Economics, Dr. Ludwig Erhard, has been, 
next to the Chancellor, the most important repre¬ 
sentative, whereas the SPD, in favor of a planned 
econony, has been the strongest opponent. It is too 
early to see whether this social market policy will 
prove definitely successful. Under the influence of 
foreign trade developments and furthermore under the 
influence of the strained international situation as 
such economic trends have set in which, accompanied by 
price increases and by shortage of certain materials, 
undoubtedly alienated voters from the CDU, but at least 
initial successes of the free market policy can hardly 
be denied. 


As to foreign policy, the CDU is character¬ 
ized by almost exclusive reliance on an understanding 
and cooperation with the Western Powers. Any CDU 
tendencies for coming to an understanding with Russia 
also cannot be seen. Besides, the CDU includes the 
most ardent supporters of European federation, among 
them the leader of the CDU in the Federal Diet, Dr. 
Heinrich von Brentano. Again and again the Chancellor 
has expressed himself in favor of peaceful cooperation 
between Germany and France. 


- 15 - 


Similar to the membership of the former 
Center Party the membership of the CDU is comprised of 
industrialists, including representatives of steel and 
other heavy industries, and industrial workers, some of 
whom had formerly belonged to the Christian Social 
labor unions which together with other labor organiza¬ 
tions later were merged into one single German labor 
union. It also includes farmers, intellectuals, civil 
service people, as a natter of fact, people from all 
walks of life. For some time it was considered as 
becoming "the" non-socialist "Sammelpartei" (Everyman*s 
Party). But other parties, especially the FEP (Free 
Democratic Party), have, in the meantime, diminished 
such original CDU prospects. Women tend to vote in 
exceptionally large numbers for the CDU by about ten 
per cent above the percentage given by women to other 
parties. 


The party congress held at Goslar on October 
21 and 22, 1940, has been called the first one because 
for the first time the CDU had been able to hold a 
congress comprising the party organizations of all 
Laender of Western Germany and the Western Sector of 
Berlin. Up to that time only regional party organiza¬ 
tions had existed without being formally bound together 
by a party statute for all of them. Consequently, only 
separate party congresses could be arranged, on a 
Laender or on a zonal basis (representing for instance 
the British zone of occupation), though an interzonal 
CDU/CSU executive organization (Interzonenarbeits- 
gemeinschaft) had existed since April 1947. In 
contrast, the Social-Democratic Party was organized 
from the beginning on a national basis, with head¬ 
quarters located at Hannover wielding a very strong 
influence over the Laender organizations. 

The party program is well explained in a 
pamphlet issued in 194& by the CDU headquarters in 
Cologne under the title *»Was ist, was will die CDU?" 
("What is, what does the CDU want?**). (Koln/karienburg, 
Robert-Heuser-Str • 24.) The party program in its 
entirety and an outline of the party organization are 
contained in the Politisohes Jahrbuch ( Political Year 
Book) of the GDU/OSU, edited by Bruno Doerpinghaus and 
Dr. Kurt Witt. (1. Jahrgang 1950, published by the 
Generalsekretariat der Arbeitsgemeinschaft der CDU/CSU 
fur Deutschland (Joint Executive Committee). Bonn, 
Alexanderstr. 20, Frankfurt a/fo., Bettinastr. 64 .) A 
valuable "Bibliography** of publications, which the 
editors claim to be of importance for an analysis of 


- 16 - 




contemporary problems from CDU perspectives is also 
included in this Year Book. 

The most recent formulations of CDU party 
policy are presented in the following addresses; "The 
Historic Mandate of the CDU," by Dr. Georg Kissinger, 
Member of the Federal Diet; "The Historic Mandate of 
the CDU," by Prof. Dr. Stier; "The Social Mandate of 
the CDU," by Dr. Robert Tillmanns, Member of the 
Federal Diet; "The European Mandate of the CDU," by 
Dr. Heinrich v. Brentano, Member of the Federal Diet; 
"Agriculture and Social Market Policy," try Prof. Dr. 
Niklas, Member of the Cabinet; "The Cultural Mandate 
of the CDU," by Prof. Dr. Gantenberg. All these 
addresses, given before the first party congress at 
Goslar, are published by the Deutschland-Union-Dienst, 
Frankfurt a/M., Bettinastr. 64 in mimeographed form 
under date of October 21 and 22, 1950. 

According to official information of the CDU 
headquarters the following newspapers, periodicals, 
and information services can be regarded (a) as organs 
of the CDU, (b) as tending towards the party. 

(a) Organs of the CDU 

Informationsdienst der CDU, K51n. 

Deutschland-Union-Dienst, Bonn, Frankfurt. 

Union in Deutschland, Bonn, Frankfurt. 

* CVP-Rundschau, Saarbrucken. 

Junge Generation, now Neue Generation, Koln. 

Union, Stuttgart (20,000). 

Westfalisches Monatsblatt, Dortmund. 

(b) Organs tending towards the CDU 

Aachener Volkszeitung, Aachen (230,000). 

Westfalen-Zeitung, Bielefeld, (110,400). 

Ruhr-Nachrichten, Dortmund. 

Essener Tageblatt, Essen, (57,000). 

Hamburger Freie Presse, (130,000). 

Kieler Nachrichten, Kiel, (102,000). 

Kolnische Rundschau, Koln, (176,000). 

Rheinische Post, DHsseldorf, (230,000). 

Mulheimer Tageblatt, Mulheim, (7,000). 

Westfalische Nachrichten, MSnster, (75,000). 

Oberhausener Tageblatt, Oberhausen, (10,000). 

Die Glocke, Oelde, (29,500). 

Neueste Zeitung, Recklinghausen, (17,500). 

Westfalenpost, Soest, (170,000). 

Bayern-Kurier, MSnchen. 


- 17 


Mann in der Zeit, Augsburg, (220,000). 

Christ und Welt, Stuttgart, (65,000). 

Michael, DUsseldorf, (40,000). 

Rheinischer Merkur, Koblenz, (70,000). 

Schwabische Zeitung, Leutkirch, (121,000). 

Der Abend, Berlin, (73,300, according to Landesver. 

Berlin). 

Der Tag, Berlin. 

Tagespost, Augsburg. 

Schwabische Landeszeitung, Augsburg. 

Ketteler Wacht. 

Zeitung ohne Namen, Dusseldorf (BVN). 

Der Ueberblick, MSnchen, (3,500). 

Dokumente, Munchen, formerly Offenburg, (5,000). 

Neues Abendland, Augsburg. 

Die Aussprache. 

Konmnmalpolitische Blatter, Recklinghausen. 

These lists, however, should not be con¬ 
sidered as exhaustive. There are many hundreds of 
dailies and periodicals throughout Germany which 
virtually, though perhaps not exclusively, represent 
CDU policy or the policy of the Adenauer coalition. 

Though the CDU on the occasion of the first 
elections to the Federal Diet (August 1949) emerged as 
the strongest of the parties in Western Germany, it 
cannot be overlooked that, even at that time, the 
percentage of its voters, as compared with results of 
previous regional elections, had decreased by 7.7 per 
cent, and amounted to only 31 per cent of all votes. 
Since then the party has suffered further losses, 
especially in the last few important state elections. 
Its votes went down in the elections held in Hesse from 
453,000 in 1949 to 347,000 in 1950, in Wuerttemberg- 
Baden from 542,000 in 1949 to 379,000 in 1950, in 
Bavaria from 29.2 per cent of the votes in 1949 to 27.4 
per cent in 1950. 

The CDU has developed its relatively best 
stability in the Landtag elections of North Rhine- 
Westphalia. 


As far as the Bavarian results are concerned, 
conclusions are made difficult by the fact that the 
Bavarian CSU has been split up by secession of the 
Bavarian Party from the CSU. 


- 18 - 


At any rate, the losses are substantial. 
Whether they will be regained cannot be said yet 
mainly because it is uncertain whether the Protes¬ 
tants which separated from the party will return to 
its fold in the future. Other reasons for the losses 
are numerous and may be summarized here, although 
partly referred to previously. (1) Separation of 
expellees from the party, of whom a large portion have 
formed independent parties. (2) Price increases or 
other unwelcome economic developments attributed to 
faulty economic policy of the government. (3) Loss of 
popularity of leading personalities of the party. 

(4) Lack of success of the foreign policy of the 
government. (5) Disapproval (especially by the young 
generation) of the willingness of the government to 
contribute to Western European rearmament before 
Germany is reunited and equality of rights and obliga¬ 
tions established. (6) Critioism directed against a 
too authoritarian rule of the party tending to remove 
from influence within the party all those who are not 
limitless conformists. The exclusion from the party 
of the CDU member Dr. Guenther Gereke and the, retire¬ 
ment from office of the Minister of the Interior, Dr. 
Gustav Heinemann, are examples. (7) Criticism that 
the party has not been capable of creating and 
enhancing enthusiasm for its aims. (8) Lack of 
registered party members. It is said that millions 
vote for the CDU, but would not regard themselves as 
its partners, let alone think of becoming members. 
Consequently, the party has no financial resources of 
its own, but is dependent on a few big money contri¬ 
butors. Some critics, going much too far apparently, 
say that under such circumstances it resembles a large 
club possessing many local branches more than a 
strongly organized people’s party. 

In conclusion it appears worth mentioning 
that, soon after its formation, the party tried, to 
develop relations with similar parties of other 
countries. In this it had not very substantial but, 
nevertheless, noticeable success. The secretary 
general of the CDU/CSU Arbeitsgemeinschaft, Bruno 
Doerpinghaus, on the occasion of the third annual con¬ 
vention of the youth section of the European Christian 
Democratic Parties (Nouvelles Equipes Internationales), 
declared in October 1950, that the Christian Democratic 
Parties of Europe now had the unique opportunity of 
taking over the leadership of Europe. 


- 19 


Closely affiliated with the CDU, as was 
repeatedly stressed in the foregoing, is the Bavarian 
CSU, part of the Adenauer Coalition government, to 
which it contributed the Minister of Finance and the 
Minister of Agriculture ♦ Indeed, the programs of the 
CDU and CSU do not differ greatly from each other, with 
the exception, perhaps, that the CSU is even more 
federalists than the CDU. 

It furthermore merits attention that leading 
members of the CSU are more interested in coming to 
some kind of understanding with the east than are many 
members of the CDU, exclusively orientated towards the 
west. The name of the strongwilled Bavarian Minister 
of Justice, Dr. Joseph Mueller, has to be mentioned in 
this connection as one of the foreign political 
authorities of the CSU. 

The CSU has voted against the Bonn Basic Law, 
regarding it as too centralists. 

Head of the party is the present Bavarian 
Prime MSister, Dr. Hans Ehard. Another widely known 
member of the party is Dr. Aloys Hundhammer, up to 
December 1950 Bavarian Minister of Education, who has 
often been accused by his opponents of conducting a 
reactionary and clerically influenced cultural policy 
in Bavaria, but whose political Stegrity and ability 
have not been questioned. 


VI 

The Social Democratic Party 

SSce the elections to the Federal Diet the 
second strongest party of Western Germany, the Social 
Democratic Party, has increased its strength in the 
lest few State Diet (Landtag) elections. It received 
the following votes: 


19A9 

Hesse: 683,000 

32.1* 

1950 

687,000 

42.7* 

Wuerttemberg- 

Baden: 441,000 

27.2* 

476,000 

33.0* 

Bavaria: 1,075,000 

22.8* 

2,600,000 

28.0* 


- 20 - 


The difference in number of votes is partly 
due to a ohange of the electoral law in Bavaria and 
therefore offers no exact basis for comparison. 

In Hesse, the SPD gained the absolute 
majority in the Federal Diet, having 47 seats as 
against 33 seats for all other parties. 

It probably goes without saying that what 
worked to the detriment of the CDU has worked to the 
advantage of the SPD. The party has not been against 
European unification, but has refrained from advocating 
German participation on any basis other than that of 
equality of rights and obligations. The party has not 
been against a German contribution to the rearmament 
of Europe, but again emphasized that this has to be 
done on the basis of equal rights and obligations and 
of sufficient military strength of the Western Powers 
to prevent, in case of war, Germany’s becoming 
Immediately the main and completely ruined battlefield 
of Europe. The party, furthermore, ha3 a relatively 
large membership of about 900,000, and is therefore 
less dependent than other parties upon the readiness 
of individual donors for election campaigns. In 
addition, it has a stable and large number of followers 
among the unified labor movement. To its critics, on 
the other hand, its policy regarding the east appears 
rather sterile. They cannot see that any particular 
idea has been developed of how to reach some re¬ 
unification of the whole of Europe, i.e., including 
the hereditary parts of Europe east of the iron 
curtain and the Soviet Zone of Germany. They feel it 
has remained to a considerable extent Marxian and a 
class party and they state that in this regard it 
differs from the British Labour Party. As a whole the 
party can be said to follow an economic, cultural and 
domestic policy similar to that of the British Labour 
Party, but in foreign affairs the German Social 
Democratic Party, when serving the particular situa¬ 
tion of the German people, cannot emulate the British 
Labour Party’s foreign policy. It has, consequently, 
been in conflict with British foreign policy on many 
occasions, while supporting the British labor policy in 
other aspects, e.g., in its hesitant attitude regarding 
European unification. 

Other criticism of the SPD maintains that it 
is under a leadership at least as authoritarian as the 
CDU, that its policy regarding European unification is 
leaning too heavily on cooperation with the British 


- 21 - 


Labour Party and is thereby in effect hampering the 
work of European unification, that in matters of 
rearmament its policy is confused because it wants to 
make a German contribution only after overwhelming 
western strength is assured, but in such case, critics 
maintain, a German contribution would hardly be needed, 
and that its cultural policy is lacking or weak as to 
Christian impulses and has not overcome sufficiently 
19th century ideas. 

It should not be overlooked that at least up 
to and including the elections to the Federal Diet the 
Social Democratic Party, like the ODD, has lost votes. 
The percentage of its votes was smaller at that time 
than before. 

The SPD is headed tjy Dr. Kurt Schumacher, 
Erich Ollenhauer and Prof. Dr. Carlo Schmid. It is 
the center of the parliamentary opposition which is a 
loyal, i.e., constitutional, non-revolutionary one. 

The SPD refrains from relations with the Communist 
Party and therefore has not been inclined to contact 
the SED, the Communist-dominated Socialist Unity Party 
of German (Sozialistische Einheits-Partei DeutschlandsX 
in the Soviet-occupied zone, though a large part of the 
members of the SED had been former members of the SPD, 
among them Otto Grotewohl, the Prime Minister of the 
Soviet zone, and Friedrich Ebert, Mayor of the Soviet 
sector of Berlin, son of the first President of the 
Weimar Republic. 

In the Federal Diet the SPD has several 
Protestant clergymen among its members, thus giving 
proof of the continuance of so-called religious 
socialism within its ranks. However, a large part of 
the SPD party in the Federal Diet describe themselves 
as "dissidents," i.e., as not formally belonging to 
any religious denomination. 

The party is in favor of socialization of the 
heavy industries especially also the Ruhr Industry. 

In principle it supports the Schuman Plan, but actually 
with considerable reservations, for it favors a 
European Ruhr, as indicated, only on the basis of com¬ 
plete equality of rights and obligations. It is afraid 
that under the influence of the CDU and its correspond¬ 
ing parties in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands a 
"European" Ruhr would lead to the perpetuation of 
private capitalism, if not monopolism. In this too it 
shares opinions and apprehensions of the British Labour 
Party. 


- 22 - 


Its leader, Kurt Schumacher, has often been 
accused of nationalism. Yet this does not appear to 
be justified. He has spent ten years in Hitler’s 
eonoentration camps because of his anti-totalitarian 
and anti-nationalistio stand. It is hard to prove 
that what he emphasizes goes beyond the confines of a 
healthy patriotism, such as is also accepted in the 
United States, France, and Great Britain. 

It seems that today there are many Germans 
who disapprove of the economic ideas as well as the 
cultural policy of the SPD, but feel in accord with 
a good deal of its foreign policy. Perhaps it would 
be disastrous if opposition in matters of foreign 
policy were—in contrast to Great Britain, France, or 
the United States—to be left exclusively to left wing 
or right wing radicals. 

The fact that the Social Democratic Party is 
not pursuing "disloyal" attitudes regarding the 
western parliamentary system with its ramifications is 
evidenced by a remarkable address delivered by Prof. 

Dr. Carlo Schmid before the party congress of 1950, on 
"The German Sooial Democratic Party confronted with 
the Spiritual Situation of our Times" (published by 
the Parteivorstand der SPD, Hannover, Odeonstr. 15/16). 
In this address Schmid denies the present validity of 
quite a few opinions prevailing at the time of Karl 
Marx and represented by him, although he under lines 
the basic correctness of many Marxian findings. He 
stresses as the never-ceasing aim of socialism the 
classless society, but he vigorously turns against any 
program of achieving the aims of his "party of the 
laboring class" by establishing a dictatorship. 

Other recent SPD programmatic formulations 
are contained in a pamphlet issued by the Partei- 
vorstand in Hannover oalled "Das Programm der 
Opposition" ("The Program of the Opposition"). The 
pamphlet oontains the texts of speeches given by Dr. 
Kurt Schumacher, Erich Ollenhauer and Dr. Carlo Schmid 
in the Federal Diet on September 21, 23, and 29, 1949. 
The text of the so-called "DUrkheim sixteen points" 
gives the guiding principles for the policy of the 
SPD in the Federal Diet. This Diirkheim program of the 
SPD reads in excerpts as follows: 


- 23 - 


Durkheim Pro gran of the SPD 


The presiding officers (Vorstand) of the 
Social Democratic Party at a meeting on August 30, 

1950, held in Bad Durkheim, formulated the following 
sixteen points, the fulfillment of which appears to be 
a prerequisite for a healthy German state: 

1. Assurance of full employment. 

2. Planned credit and raw material policy. 

3* Equalization of the social burden by seizing 
part of the private fortunes and not merely the 
revenues of fortimes. 

4. Federal furthering of housing projects, 
especially under the point of view of social 
justice. 

5. Help to the expellees and all those who have 
suffered war damages. 

6. Reorganization of social insurance, etc. 

7. Co-management of the workers in business 
under participation of the labor unions. 

8. Abolition of the political and economic power 
of big property and of the managers through 
socialization of the basic raw materials—and key 
industries. 

9. Guaranties for free deployment (freie Ent- 
faltung) of the forces of the agricultural, trade, 
and handicraft middle-class. 

10. Strengthening of communal self-administration. 

11. Confining Allied interference to merely control 
measures. Changing the Ruhr Statute. Rejection 

of dismantling of peace-industry, 

12. Inclusion of Berlin as 12th federal state into 
the Western Federal Republic. 

13. Rejection of the Oder-Neisse-Line as German 
frontier. Retention of the Saar Territory within 
the German borders. 


- 24 - 



14. Measures against separatists and parti¬ 
cularistic policies. 

15. Cultural freedom. 

Another publication of importance is the 
reprint of an address delivered by Dr. Kurt 
Schumacher on September 17, 1950, in Stuttgart, pub¬ 
lished by the party (Parteivorstand) in Hannover under 
the title "Germany's Contribution for Peace and 
Freedom," 


Furthermore, the Social Democratic Party has 
published Yearbooks covering the years of 1946, 1947, 
and 1948/49 (Jahrbiicher der Sozialdemokratischen 
Partei Deutschlands). These Yearbooks present surveys 
of the situation in all the different zones of occupa¬ 
tion and of Berlin. They deal with organizational 
affairs, women's activities, young socialists, news¬ 
papers and other publications, and propaganda. In 
addition, the Yearbooks discuss party activities in 
matters of economics, agriculture, constitutional life, 
administration, foreign policy, social policy, 
expellees' questions, labor unions, etc. They also 
contain election results and reports about the politi¬ 
cal developments in the different Laender, as Hesse, 
Wuerttemberg-Baden, Bavaria, Bremen in the American 
zone, North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony, Schleswig- 
Holstein, Hamburg in the British zone, Southern Baden, 
Wuerttemberg-Hohenzollem, Rhineland-Palatinate, and 
the Saar Territory in the French zone, and finally 
Berlin. 


The published minutes of the party conventions 
in 1946, 1947, and 1948 are available. 

The party has at its disposal a large number 
of periodicals, information sheets, etc. In a publi¬ 
cation issued by the Parteivorstand in Hannover on 
April 27, 1950, SPD or near-SPD publications were 
listed. Additional information was published under 
date of July 25, 1950. (§ee Appendix.) 


25 - 



VII 


The Free Democratic Party 

The Free Democratic Party (FDP), together 
with the CDU/CSU and the German Party (DP) ( see 
Chapter VIII), forms part of the present German 
coalition government. Among its prominent members 
are the Federal President, Dr. Theodor Heuss, and the 
Vice Chancellor, Dr. Franz Bluecher. The party has a 
good deal in common with the former Progressive Party 
of the Bismarck Reich and the former Democratic Party 
of the Weimar period, bat whereas the parties of that 
time were left wing parties seated in the Reichstag 
between the Social Democratic Party and the former 
Center Party, the present FDP (which in some states is 
also called Deutsche Volks-Partei (DVP—German People*s 
Party)) has definitely taken its stand right of the CJDU. 
It apparently wants to be a party of the right, not of 
the left. In this the FDP also differs from the 
British Liberal Party, with which it sympathizes how¬ 
ever. 


In spite of these right wing tendencies, 
progressive and democratic ideas are not missing 
within the party ranks. Heuss and Bluecher themselves 
should perhaps be reckoned more as scions of the 
ancient progressive and liberal type. 

let the situation as is Immediately offers 
the highly involved fact that in complete contrast to 
former German history, no party of strength exists 
between the CDU and SPD in present-day Germany. This 
is all the more significant because the FDP has a good 
deal of its support forthcoming from big industry and 
business. It remains to be seen whether the FDP will 
avoid becoming thereby subservient to them. It also 
remains to be seen whether the FDP will be strong 
enough to survive inroads of exclusively rightist 
parties in case such should come into strong existence. 
For it has to be remembered that the National Liberal 
Party of the Bismarck Reich and Gustav Stresemann*s 
Deutsohe Volks-Partei, with which the FDP has 
politically as much if not more in common as with the 
former progressives and democrats, was constantly 
threatened and weakened by plainly rightist parties, 
e.g., by the Deutechnationale Volkspartei (German 
National People’s Party) of Hugenberg. 


- 26 - 



Since 1945 the FDP has grown in number of 
votes as well as in inner consolidation. It has 
gained a considerable number of friends among the 
young generation also, especially among the academic 
youth. In particular, it has remained rather stable 
at a time when the CDU, its partner in the Bonn 
government coalition, has, as discussed before, lost 
votes. Compared with the elections to the Federal 
Diet in 1949, the FEP fared as follows in the last few 
state elections: 


1949 1950 

Hesse: 596,000 28.1% 588,000 31.8% 

(1949 figures include National Democratic 

(splinter) Party; 1950 figures include 
the BHE, but not the NDP, therefore exact 
basis for comparison is not offered.) 

Wuerttemberg- 

Baden: 318,000 18.2% 303,000 21.1% 

Bavaria: 8.5% 1.1% 

(Due to a change of the electoral law in 
Bavaria the difference in number of votes 
is not an exact basis for comparison.) 

With regard to its cultural policy (perhaps 
only in this regard), the FDP stands somewhat between 
the SPD and the CDU. It is not less vociferous than 
the SPD in accusing the CDU of "clericalism.” It is 
especially against parochial schools. But it, too, 
strongly stresses the Christian basis of its policy. 
The large majority of its followers are Protestants, 
which is likewise reminiscent of the composition of 
former German national-liberalism, liberalism and 
progressivism. 

A prominent member of the FEP is the Federal 
Minister of Justice, Thomas Dehler, a Protestant 
Bavarian. He and a large section of the FDP are often 
accused of exaggerated nationalistic tendencies, an 
accusation which, however, still lacks sufficient 
proof. 


In matters of foreign policy the FDP has not 
yet substantially differentiated itself from the CDU 
or specifically the Adenauer policy. 


- 27 - 


In economic matters the party is, far more 
than the CDU, devoted to economic individualism and 
free enterprise. It is against socialisation and any 
other collectivist system. To a certain extent it is 
"Jeffersonian" as to economics, if not "Manchesterian." 

In domestic policy it is mainly oentralistic 
and anti-federalist. 

Under able leadership, with more than average 
support forthcoming, as said, from the younger genera¬ 
tion, using admittedly somewhat stronger national 
language than the CDU, offering refuge to those 
Protestants who have turned or may still turn away 
from the CDU, a future upward tend of the FDP appears 
possible. 


The party was founded in Berlin on June 16, 
1945, by the former Reichsminister of the Interior, 

Dr. Wilhelm Kuelz, later accused of yielding to 
communist pressure in the Soviet zone, a tragic, but 
honest and outstanding figure in German party history. 

As to a detailed summary of the present 
programmatic aims of the FDP reference may be made to 
the so-called "Bremer Beschliisse" (Bremen resolutions) 
which were adopted by the 1950 party convention held in 
Bremen and published in mimeographed form under no. 
99-115 (resolutions no. 1-17) by the deputy leader of 
the party. Other resolutions of programmatic 
character were made by the main committee of the party 
on September 24, 1950 at a meeting held in Kassel. 

These and further resolutions are reprinted in the 
Deutscher Kurier . liberal weekly for politics, economics 
and culture (published in Frankfurt, Neue Mainzerstr. 
24, issue of September 30, 1950). The editor is 
August M. Euler, member of the Federal Diet. The 
Kassel resolutions are also reprinted in Per Freie 
Demokrat (edited by Ernst Mayer, published in 
Stuttgart, Rotebtifalstr. 51). Of importance is the 

economic program of the FDP as approved by the Free 
Democratic Party of the British zone of occupation 
(published in pamphlet-size by the FDP under the 
imprint of Julius Lehnert, Hamburg, E. P. 174.). 

The following party publications might be 
mentioned as of further interest: Das Neue Vaterland . 
Stuttgart, Rotebfithlstr. 51, Die Plattform (Fraktiaas- 
r undschreiben), and Die FDP Briefe (mimeographed pub¬ 
lication, editor Dr. Franz Bluecher). 


- 28 - 









As in the case of the CDU, a very large 
number, again hundreds, if not thousands, of periodi¬ 
cals and newspapers represent FDP polioy, although 
they deny direct or indirect party affiliation. 


VIII 

The German Party 

The third coalition party is the Deutsche 
Partei (German Party—DP), which got about one million 
votes in the Federal Diet elections and thereupon was 
allotted 17 deputies. Under a majority electoral law 
its inclusion into the Adenauer government coalition 
would not have occurred, for reasons explained in 
Chapter II. 

The party calls itself a party of the right. 
It began on a strongly federalistic basis when it was 
founded in the former We If territories which up to 
1837, i.e., up to the beginning of Queen Victoria's 
reign, were connected with England through personal 
union. Now less federalistic, it has spread through¬ 
out other parts of northern Germany. The ESP is over¬ 
whelmingly Protestant. In its economic policy the DP 
is leaning towards the FDP. Its feelings are "anti- 
Prussian," but undoubtedly German, if not of 
nationalistic flavor, as some say. 


IX 

Center Party - Bavarian Party 

Other parties of importance are the Center 
Party and the Bavarian Party. 

The Center Party regards itself as the true 
heir of the old Center Party (Zentrum) of the Weimar 
Republic, though today most of the outstanding 
personalities of the Weimar Party are to be found in 
the CDU. Its followers are mainly Catholics, but the 
party claims not to pursue denominational tendencies. 

It received only 727,000 votes (3.7 per cent) at the 
elections to the Federal Diet. It was allotted 10 
seats as result of proportional representations. In 
America or England, under the majority electoral law 
system, it would hardly exist even as a splinter party. 
The leader of the party, a woman, is highly respected, 


- 29 - 



talented and energetic and wields influence beyond the 
party; Helene Wessel also shows great interest and 
judgment in matters of foreign affairs. It remains to 
be seen whether the party will enjoy a future in spite 
of apparent financial difficulties. 

Chancellor Adenauer is exercising particular 
care in his relations to the Center Party in the 
obvious endeavor to achieve a fusion of the CDU and the 
Center Party. 

The party*s political place is left of the 
CDU. It is more inclined to accept socialization than 
the CDU and it is also more inclined to have cooperation 
with the SPD than Adenauer and the CDU. The party has 
adherents especially among the workers of North-Rhine 
Westphalia. 


In contrast, the Bavarian Party is a true 
majority party in a few Bavarian voting districts and 
would also be represented in a parliament based on a 
majority electoral law. The party has done consider¬ 
able damage to the CSU, of which it is an offspring, 
but it has perhaps already reached its climax. At the 
last Bavarian elections held on November 26, 1950 the 
CSU received 27.4 per cent of the votes and 64 seats, 
the Bavarian Party received 17.2 per cent of the votes 
and 39 seats, as against 29.2 per cent and 20.9 per 
cent respectively at the Federal Diet elections in 
August 1949. Together both parties would have a weak 
majority in the Bavarian Diet. Yet the tension between 
the two parties is great. The largest part of its 
members, just as in the Center Party, are Catholics. 
Criticism accuses the Bavarian Party of not being 
federalistic, but particularistic or even separatistic. 
The party is clearly not so much for German federation 
as confederation. The leader of the Bavarian Party is 
Dr. Joseph Baumgartner. According to the Deutsche 
Presse-Agentur (DPA) of December 29, 1949, he stated 
in a New Year’s message that ’’with all legal means 
available to us this so-called West German Federation 
robbing us of our freedom mist be fought." At the 
party congress held in Munich in August 1950, Dr. 
Baumgartner, in almost unparailed language, made, 
according to the Neue Zeitung of August 6, 1950, the 
following remarks: "We c Bavarians 3 . . can only pray: 
Lord, redeem us of this evil c the Bonn West German 
Federation]. Amen." He criticized the financial 
contributions of the German Federation to the people of 
Berlin and said that Bonn as federal capital is 


- 30 - 



*apparently only the first step leading towards 
Berlin which we, however, will never accept as 
oapital.■ 


The party has recently gone through a crisis. 
Former members were brought before a committee of the 
Federal Diet investigating alleged contributions given 
them in order to influence their votes. 


X 

Extreme “Right Wing” Groups 

At the right of the DP we find a multitude 
of political groups. To oall them ’’parties" would 
mean exaggeration of their importance, but their 
potentialities nevertheless merit consideration. It 
is often asked whether a new National Socialism or 
nationalism might emerge from them. 

In this connection it is necessary to 
realize that, first, with a few exceptions, these 
groups cannot, in the usual sense, be considered as 
belonging to the "right." Their thinking is not in 
line with conservative ideas. The German conservative 
forces, working for preservation of the principles of 
western civilization, are generally to be found within 
the CDU/CSU, FDP, IP, and their affiliates, also 
within the SPD rather than within the groups under 
discussion, for most of the "right wing" political 
organizations are more collectivistic than individu¬ 
alistic, more revolutionary than evolutionary. In 
view of the singular conditions prevailing in Germany 
and their unfavorable influence upon the political 
climate it cannot be foreseen whether these groups 
might succeed in weakening the position of parties like 
the CDU, SPD, and FIP. Certainly, the longer these 
conditions prevail, the greater can become their 
chances, the more has to be reckoned with the emergence 
of discontented elements which will array themselves 
under a new, able demagogy not based on healthy 
patriotic, but on nationalistic feelings. Fortunately, 
among German youth of today a really national socialist 
creed can be observed but very occasionally. 

It cannot be repeated too often that what is 
remarkable in present-day German party developments is 
not strength but absence of nationalistic radicalism. 
Even such oapable "right wing" campaigners like Dr. 


31 


Fritz Doris and Hitlerite ex-General Otto Ernst Rehmer 
were not able, up to now, to make headway with their 
"Socialistic Reich's Party" (Sozialistische Reichs- 
Partei—SRP). It is said that they are spokesmen for 
Otto Strasser who is still in Canada, or for Ernst 
Niekisoh, now in the Soviet zone. Doris and Rehmer did 
not win more than about 2 per cent of the votes even in 
the recent Schleswig-Holstein elections in spite of the 
fact that, as previously stated, the economio crisis 
there is especially great. Neither have these groups 
been able to prove any strength in the November 
elections which took place in Hesse, Wuerttemberg- 
Baden and Bavaria. 

On June 24 and 26, 1950, several right wing 
splinter parties are reported to have resolved at a 
secret conference held in Neuwied to start coopera¬ 
tion among themselves with the final aim of fusing the 
splinter groups into a single "national party" (United 
Press, June 26). Mentioned in this connection, besides 
the Sozialistische Reichs-Partei, were the Vater- 
landische Union (Patriotic Union) of Karl Feitenhansl, 
the National-Demokratische Partei (National Democratic 
Party) led by Karl Heinz Priester, and a group of 
independents headed by Joachim von Ostau. No success 
of these endeavors has become visible. (For steps 
taken against the Sozialistische Reichs-Partei see 
Chapter IV.) 

A thorough study of nationalistic "right 
wing" tendencies in Germany of today, a study perhaps 
too thorough and thereby tending to exaggerate the 
problem, has been published in an issue of the 
"Information Letter" of the Frankfurter Hefte for 
September 1, 1950 (no. 7S, p. 1-11). 


XI 

Pressure Groups 

In the United States the part played by 
political pressure groups is one of the main topios 
with which political science deals. It is correctly 
said that the study of the transmission of the 
influence of the pressure groups to political life is 
even one of the central tasks which political science 
has to perform. (See "Die Wissenschaft der Politik in 
der Demokratie" by Dr. Franz Neuman (Professor of 
Political Science at Columbia University), Schriften- 
reihe der Deutschen Hochschule fUr Politik Berlin, 


- 32 - 



Gebr. Weiss Verlag, Berlin, p. 20.) 

For a long time and very naturally in 
Germany, too, so-called pressure groups have wielded 
influence (in Hitler's terminology named "Interessen- 
haufen"). One may think of the Navy League 
(Flottenverein) or of the Farmers' Union (Bund der 
Landwirte), or of the labor organizations or of the 
Central Union of German Industry (Zentralverband der 
deutschen Industrie), some of them in existence since 
the time of Bismarck. There is no doubt that interest 
groups also wield influence within the German parties 
of today. 


In this connection the question is occasion¬ 
ally raised whether the classification of parties of 
the right or of the left still makes sense in Germany. 
As has frequently been mentioned before, in economic 
and social matters a large part of the CDU/CSU, 
perhaps also of the Bavarian Party and of the right 
wing groups can be called "near socialistic"; yet, in 
cultural and related matters the CDU and the Bavarian 
Party are clearly on the political right, in the old 
sense of the term; in matters of centralization or 
decentralization, of federalism or unitarianism the 
Social Democratic Party often ranges close to the Free 
Democratic Party, in opposition to the CDU/CSU and the 
Bavarian Party and perhaps also to parts of the German 
Party (DP). Moreover, the growing influence of the 
expellees' parties makes itself felt in the ranks of 
all parties. Where are the economically or the 
socially privileged classes or castes; are they on the 
"right" or on the "left" when millions of fortunes 
have been wiped out in virtually all sectors of German 
life? "Right and "left" are in present-day Germany 
apparently often woven or mixed into each other. 

Uhder these circumstances interest groups within 
Germany have to work in many parties at the same time 
and tinder conditions more difficult if not, relatively 
speaking, even more expensive than in other countries 
in which, of course, they likewise are often forced to 
turn to "right and left" factions at the same time. 

Some light has been shed on this situation 
during the Federal Diet "Spiegel" investigation. A 
weekly, Der Spiegel , had published an article according 
to which some deputies of the Federal Diet had taken 
money for voting for or against Bonn or Frankfurt when 
the question had to be decided which city should 
become the capital of the federal government. These 


- 33 



investigations have not come to an end yet and final 
conclusions cannot be drawn. 

According to press reports, even a spokesman 
of the Social Democratic Party has recently stated that 
all the parties need major private contributions in 
order to function though he simultaneously denied that 
the Social Democratic Party had been offered or 
accepted money from the labor unions (Geverkschaften). 
The Bonn Basic Law says in article 21 that the parties 
have to give account of the sources of their financial 
means, but so far no legislation has been enacted to 
this effect. 

The fact that in Germany the former dis¬ 
tinction between parties of the left and of the right 
has lost a good deal of its meaning, should, however, 
not lead to the conclusion that the traditional terms 
of political right and left have lost every meaning or 
are not widely used any more in Germany. On the 
contrary, as recently as after the last election to the 
Bavarian Diet some Bavarian parties entered into a 
feud whether they should be seated in parliament on the 
right or on the left. Neither should it be concluded 
that because of the precarious differentiation between 
the political right and left in Germany interest 
groups have lost anything of their actual or potential 
importance. On the basis of the preceding discussion, 
it is evident that their importance has remained as 
great in Germany as in the United States or elsewhere. 
In the struggle, for instance, regarding socialization 
it seems that the main influence of the industrial 
interest groups favors the parties of the Adenauer 
coalition government, the main influence of the united 
labor union (Einheitsgewerkschaft) favors the SPD. 


XII 

Coalition Governments 

In present-day Germany no party has a majority 
in the federal parliament nor can any expect to get one 
in the near future. This makes coalition governments 
necessary. Discussions are constantly conducted about 
whether a so-called "great” or "small” coalition 
government should be formed. A "great” coalition is 
one which would include the Social Democratic Party 
in the existing coalition. Both the leader of the CDU, 
Konrad Adenauer, as well as the leader of the SPD, Kurt 


- 34 - 


Schumacher, have repeatedly declined the formation 
of a great coalition from the point of view that this 
would prevent the functioning of a “loyal opposition" 
on the pattern of the British and American party 
systems and could perhaps lead ultimately to a situa¬ 
tion which characterized the Weimar Republic, in which 
the opposition came to exist eventually only of radical 
parties of the right and of the left, because of long 
existence of "great" coalitions. Therefore, it is 
feared stagnation or avoidable increase of radicalism 
oould also be the result of a new great coalition 
policy. Nevertheless, there are strong adherents to 
this idea, especially within the CDU. 

Konrad Adenauer in his aversion to a great 
coalition even went so far as to advocate the 
coordination of the Laender governments with the 
federal government by forming in the Laender, if 
possible, "small" coalition governments. His main 
opponents to this within his own party are said to be, 
among others, the Prime Minister of Rhineland- 
Westphalia, Karl Arnold, and the former Minister of 
Finance in Hesse, Werner Hilpert. 

The question comes up, of course, why no 
two-party system can be visualized in Germany, 
although in the United States and England it is 
virtually an unwritten part of the constitution. The 
reasons are manifold. First, the average German 
citizen is not much given to compromise in matters of 
party politics. He often regards a political compro¬ 
mise as a sign of weakness of character and does not 
properly distinguish between the good of a compromise 
and the evil of "Kuhhandel" (log-rolling). He is fond 
of forming new parties when he does not completely 
agree with the existing parties instead of being 
content with partial agreement. Second, in Germany 
there are wide ideological differences of opinion, 
much wider and deeper than in Great Britain and the 
United States where, for instance, no communism of 
any strength exists and the ideas of western democracy 
have been deep-rooted for a long time. Third, in 
Germany the leaders of the main parties rule their 
parties rather stronghandedly. Nonconformists are in 
constant danger of being excluded from the ranks of the 
party. For this reason, individualistic personalities 
often cannot find proper opportunities for work within 
the parties. Fourth, the electoral law by mainly 
emphasizing proportional representation, has hampered 
the development of a two-party system. 


- 35 - 



Only this latter factor can perhaps be 
changed within a foreseeable future, whereas the other 
three factors could, of course, be changed, only after 
a considerable period of time. Therefore, coalition 
governments in all probability will continue to exist 
in Germany and perhaps should exist, at least as long 
as the above three factors cannot be remedied, for the 
alternative, in this case, could well be a too 
monolithic, too uncompromising, too dangerous system of 
"either/or," "yield or break," "black or white" policy. 
As matters are at present, one could be contented if 
in Germany the multi-party system and its da m aging 
effects were restrained by developing' a limited multi¬ 
party system of three to five parties in parliament, 
maybe by confining, at the same time, the list system 
to about ten per cent of the seats and by otherwise 
establishing an absolute majority electoral system 
including run-off elections (Stichwahlen). 

This all too brief analysis of the German 
problem of party coalitions must here suffice to 
indicate how difficult it is to measure the German 
party system, and for that matter, even a good deal of 
the continental party systems as such, according to 
British or American yardsticks. 


XIII 

Frequent Criticisms of the Parties 

Political parties are not particularly 
popular in any country. The term "politician" rarely 
implies flattery, but no Britisher or American would 
feel inclined to deny the necessity of parties. Though 
he may regard them as an evil or something not very 
praiseworthy, he nevertheless would understand that one 
cannot do without them if political freedom should be 
preserved. 


This difference is present-day Germany. Again 
and again it is argued that political parties are 
remnants of past, obsolete, antiquated 19th century 
thinking and that they should be replaced, the sooner 
the better, by some kind of "Staende" (estates) or some 
related system. 


- 36 - 


Youth especially, and this is the most 
dangerous fact, tends to be apathetic towards the 
parties and most outspoken in criticism, though all 
major parties have formed vouth organizations, such 
as the "Junge Union" (CDU/CSU), the "Falken" and the 
"Sozialistische Arbeiterjugend (SPD), the "Junge 
Demokraten" (FDP) * In Wiesbaden, the capital of the 
state of Hesse, not more than 10 per cent of those 
born between 1915 and 1928 took part in the last 
elections to the Hessian Diet (November 19, 1950), and 
in other Laender the situation is similar, though one 
should refrain from a too far-reaching generalization 
of the Wiesbaden figures. Youth is interested in 
politics, but is not interested in party politics. 

Youth does not want to join the parties because it had 
once joined a party, the National Socialist Party, or 
often was joined to it, and through what might still 
prove shortsightedness of the occupying powers later 
became subjected to "denazification" procedures. "A 
burnt child dreads the fire." Besides, the parties 
have not been able to win youth over to them by giving 
them a major share of seats in parliament. Moreover, 
the leading politicians, most of them onoe-defeated 
"Weimarianer" (parliamentarians of the Weimar Republic^ 
were not very eager to limit their own parliamentary 
possibilities by nominating young people as candidates 
for elections. Such criticism, on the part of youth, 
of the prevalence of "Weimarianer" is not directed 
against the ideas and the spirit of the Weimar consti¬ 
tution, the high idealistic content of which is not 
denied, but rather against certain re-introduced 
Weimar institutions, such as proportional representa¬ 
tion, the creation of a somewhat colorless Federal 
Council (formerly Reich 1 s Council), the rule by party- 
caucuses (Fraktionszwang), an overgrowth of the spoils 
system, allegedly endangering the civil service system, 
etc. If the reestablished German republic does not 
attract youth to a much larger extent than heretofore, 
it will certainly be doomed eventually, as the most 
important Chancellor of the Weimar Republic, Dr. 
Heinrich Bruening, some time ago stressed in a speech 
delivered in Chicago. 

Other large sections of the public have also 
become lethargic regarding domestic and party politics. 
To be sure, in Bavaria and in Berlin on the occasion of 
the last elections the participation of the people was 
a broad one, comprising over 80 per cent of the 
enfranchised, but this had specific reasons. In 
Bavaria, the reason was the bitter feud between the CSU 
and the Bavarian Party, in Berlin, the reason was the 


- 37 - 



particularly exposed, dangerous situation of the city, 
itself divided into two sections, East and West Berlin, 
the latter lying as an almost isolated island in the 
Soviet-dominated zone. More representative of the wide 
apathy of the people, therefore, are the figures of 
about 63 per cent and 5& per cent of the voters* 
participation in the elections in Hesse and Wuerttem- 
berg-Baden. In the Weimar Republic and also in the 
Kaiserreich the population was most eager to partici¬ 
pate in voting. What is the reason for the lethargy? 
Rightly or wrongly the people feel that the parties 
themselves are dominated by small cliques: that the 
candidates as a rule are not nominated by primary 
party elections, but under the influence of party 
functionaries or bosses; that the people after the 
elections are hardly consulted any more; that the 
governments do not inform them sufficiently. 

Besides criticizing the parties for their 
alienation of youth and for the widely spread lethargy, 
the parties are often criticized because of the afore¬ 
mentioned "Fraktionszwang" (caucus system). Though it 
is admitted that leadership within the party is in¬ 
dispensable, many people feel that the party leader¬ 
ships in Germany use this to go too far. Seldom are 
party lines orossed as in the American Congress or in 
the French Parliament, though not in Great Britain. It 
seems that remedy can come only by return to the 
majority election system in connection with nomination 
of the candidates by primary elections, for otherwise 
the local candidate will always be too dependent on the 
influence of the party headquarter * s machinery. 

Another criticism accuses the parties of 
being too "doktrinar" (doctrinary). One feels that 
they emphasize the difference of world views too much, 
even in matters where one could well dispense with them 
The criticism is all the more remarkable because it 
cannot be disputed that the main contemporary issue, 
that of Communism, is of world-view character and that 
National Socialism, too, has been of world-view 
character. 


It is furthermore often maintained that the 
German political climate as such has become one of 
"restauration." One misses new impulses coming from the 
parties as a result of the enormous and disastrous 
experiences under National Socialism; one is uncertain 
whether the parties are not too much of a Bourbon 
character, "not having forgotten anything and having 
learned little afresh." 


Criticism of minor impact but of considerable 
effect is also directed against the large number of 
ministries erected in the capitals of the Laender, the 
great number of German prime ministers, a category of 
mass production in which Germany is leading the entire 
world, partly as the result of policies imposed on the 
nation by the occupying powers, partly ty not being 
economical enough, regarding which high expenses made 
in Bonn have offered other food for antagonism. 

But in fairness it has to be stated that a 
good deal of the criticism is going too far. One 
likes to overlook that the present-day parties are 
heir to an almost unsurpassed disaster in consequence 
of the National Socialist heritage; one forgets that 
no earthly institution has ever been in the hands of 
saints and that one cannot expect parties to be much 
better than the average of the population itself is. 

One forgets that the party leaderships and the federal 
government as well as the Laender governments, though 
partly helped by the Allied governments, are neverthe¬ 
less not granted the full independence they need for 
the conduct of responsible government; that there 
really is no peace yet, especially not in the hearts 
of victors and vanquished, but still occupation 
thoughts and statuses. One forgets that demonstrably 
the German parties possess a considerable number of 
personalities of strong character and of rich and 
sound imagination, hardly inferior to their American 
and British counterparts. But be this as it may, the 
widespread criticism of the parties should be regarded 
as a danger signal, last but not least by the leaders 
of the parties also. 

About a year ago the "Wirtschaftspolitische 
Gesellschaft von 1947” (Frankfurt/foain, Borse), with 
the help of the "Institut fur Demoskopie” took a poll 
regarding the parties. Significantly, only 13 per cent 
of the interviewed people were greatly interested in 
the realization of a party program, whereas 78 per cent 
said that party-political interest should be pushed 
into the background. Most of the people, it appeared, 
voted for parties because abstention from voting was 
regarded as the major evil, voting for parties as the 
minor evil. 


- 39 - 


XIV 


Berlin 

At the elections in the western sectors of 
Berlin on December 3, 1950, the CDU and FDP gained 
votes whereas the Social Democratic Party suffered 
losses attributed to lessened popularity of Mayor 
Ernst Reuter*s city administration due to too much 
party favoritism. Whether the losses had much to do 
with the Social Democratic policy of opposition to so- 
called demilitarization” appears doubtful. Besides, 
the western seotors of Berlin have always been an area 
of strong non-socialist influences. On the occasion of 
the previous Berlin election the especially great 
popularity then of Mayor Ernst Reuter seems to have 
won votes for the party which were not essentially 
socialistic. Nevertheless, the vote is indicative of 
the sentiment of the Berlin population in this: all 
overwhelmingly victorious parties—SPD, CDU, and FDP— 
have never ceased to be exponents of western democratic 
ideas. 


XV 

Concluding Remarks 

Altogether, when judging the political 
parties of Western Germany it would be appropriate not 
to look out too much for specifically German mysteries, 
but rather for such factors which usually and every¬ 
where tend to exercise influence for better or worse. 

If these factors are understood and appreciated, 
corresponding treatment of illness or danger spots will 
be most feasible. Political Pharisaism or superiority 
complexes are least apt to be helpful for dealing with 
party problems in Germany or anywhere else. 

For the present it is less essential to contem¬ 
plate whether the SPD may grow radical, whether people 
of the "pseudo-right” will be able to produce a new 
"leader,” whether the CDU continues to be strong or will 
split up because of inner tensions (which, as often as 
not, can be a sign of health). The overwhelmingly 
great question, really far more important than the 
Marshall Plan or the unification of Europe or military 
preparedness, is and will be: can the western world 


- 40 - 


still develop in time a political antithesis to 
Communism, a political gospel based on ideas preached 
as well as practiced and therefore entirely believable 
to the common man of all nations. On the answer to 
this question will depend the future of Western 
civilization. The problem of the political parties 
of today is basically connected with and dependent on 
the problem of solving the general crisis of our age. 


- 41 - 











. V.. 
















>• 













* 


/ 


f 



















































Appendix 


SPD and pro-SPD Publications 

Dally and Weekly Newspapers 

Telegraf (dally); Depesche (Das grosse Telegraf 

Abendblatt) (daily); Telegraf am Sonntag : Telegraf 
am Montag . Berlin-Granewald, Bismarckplatz. 

BS; Das Berliner Stadtblatt . Berlin-Wilmersdorf, 
Babelsbergstr. 38. 

Volksblatt . Berlin-Spandau, Neuendorfer Str. 101. 

Freie Presse . Bielefeld, Arndtstr. 8. 

Westfallsche Rundschau . Dortmund, Bremer Str. 16. 

Rhein-Echo . Dusseldorf, Konigsallee 27. 

Neue Ruhr-Ze1tung, Essen, Saohsenstr. 36* 

Volksstlme (weekly). Frankfurt a/fo., Bockenheimer 
Landstr. 136/138. 

Das Volk . Freiburg i. Br., Kaiser-Josef-Str. 229. 

Hamburger Echo . Hamburg 1, Speersort 1. 

Hamburger Morgenpost . Hamburg 1, Speersort 1. 

Hannoversche Presse . Hannover, Georgstr. 33. 

Neue Voche . Montagsblatt fitr Sport und Leben. 
Hannover, Georgstr. 33. 

Neuer Vorwarts . (Zentralorgan der SPD) (weekly). 
Hannover, Odeonstr. 16. 

Neckar-Echo . Heilbronn/foeckar, Allee 40. 

AZ: Badlsche Abend-Zeltung . Karlsruhe, Waldstr. 28. 


- 43 























Schleswig-Holsteinische Volkszeitung . Kiel, Bergstr. 11. 

Rheinisohe Zeitung . Koln, Breitestr. 70/80. 

Lubeoker Freie Presae . Lubeck, Dr. Julius-Leber-Str. 

48 . 

AZ: Badisch-Pfalzische Abendzeitung . Mannheim-Secken- 
heim, Hauptstr. 201. 

Die Freiheit . Mainz, Neubrunnenstr. 17. 

Siidpost . Miinchen 34, Schackstr. 2. 

Schwabische Volkszeitung . Augsburg. Miinchen 34, 
Schackstr. 2. 

Regensburger Woche . Stadtausgabe der Vplksvacht. 
Regensburg, Rich. Wagner-Str. 4/°» 

Frankische Tagespost . Niimberg und Franken. Niirnberg, 
Karl Broger Str. 9. 

Oberfrankische Volkszeitung . Hof/Saale, Marienstr. 75- 

AZ: Wurttembergische Abendzeitung . Stuttgart-N, 
Friedrichstr. 13. 

Nordwestdeutsche Rundschau . Wilhelmshaven, Borsenstr. 

16 . 

Sozialdemokratischer Pressedienst (daily). Hannover, 
Georgstr. 33. 


Periodicals 


Das Sozialistische Jahrhundert (semi-monthly). Berlin 
W. 35, Zietenstr. 18. 

Geist und Tat: Monatsschrift fur Recht. Freiheit und 

Kultur . Hamburg 1, Speersort 1. 

Illu3trierte (weekly). Berlin-Grunewald, Bismarckplatz. 

Sport-Rundschau . Die Monatszeitschrift fiir deutsche Kov 
perkultur. Frankfurt a/M., W.-Leuschner-Str. 69/77. 

Stimme der Arbeit . Gewerkschaftszeitung fiir Hessen. 
FrankfuiTlJ/^, W.-Leuschner-Str. 69/77. 


- 44 - 






















Per kaufmannische Angestellte . Hamburg 36, Holsten- 
wall 3/5. 

Per Ba nk-und Sparkassen-Angestellte . Hamburg 36, 
Holstenwall 3/5. 

Per Versicherungsange stellte . Hamburg 36, Holsten- 
wall 3/5. 

Per Relsende . Hamburg 36, Holstenwall 3/5. 

Per Angestellte im offentlichen Pienst . Hamburg 36, 
Holstenwall 3/5. 

Per Technlker . Hamburg 36, Holstenwall 3/5. 

Per Werkmeister . Hamburg 36, Holstenwall 3/5. 

Schlffahrt . PAG-Zeitschrift der Berufsgruppe 
Schiffahrt. Hamburg 36, Holstenwall 3/5. 

Frauenstimme der PAG . Hamburg 36, Holstenwall 3/5. 

Energie und Technik . Hamburg 36, Holstenwall 3/5. 

PAG - Jugendpost . Zeitschrift der deutschen Ange- 
stellten-Jugend. Hamburg 36, Holstenwall 3 / 5 . 

PAG-Nachrlchten . Wirtschafts-und Sozialpolitik, 

Arbeitsrecht, Informationen fur Vertrauensleute der 
Peutschen Angestellten-Gewerkschaft. Hamburg 36, 
Holstenwall 3/5. 

Vermessungstechnische Rundschau . Zeitschrift fur das 
Vermessungswesen. Hamburg 36, Holstenwall 3/5. 

Junge Gemeinschaft . Heifer und Funktionar-Monatszeit- 
schrift der Falken. Hannover-Linden, Peisterplatz 
10 A. 

Kinderfreund . Lebendige, bunte Kinderzeitung (monthly). 
Hannover-Linden, Peisterplatz 10 A. 

Pennaler-Echo . Schiiler-Monatsschrift. Hannover, 
Georgstr. 33. 

AufVarts. Jugendzeitschrift des Peutschen Gewerk- 
schaftsbundes. Koln, Breitestr. 70. 

Gewerkschaftllche Monatshefte . Zeitschrift fiir soziale 
Theorie und Praxis. Koln, Breitestr. 70. 


- 45 - 




















Welt der Arbeit , Wochenzeitung des Deutschen Gewerk- 
schaftsbundes. Koln, Breitestr. 70. 


Die Gefahrten . Monatsschrift fur Erkenntnis und Tat. 
Lauf bei Niirnberg, Espanstr. l/3. 

Adebar. Jugend-Zeitschrift fur Schleswig-Holstein. 
Liibeck, Dr. Julius-Leber-Str. 48 . 

Die Muschel . Literarische Zeitschrift (fortnightly). 
Ltlbeck, Dr. Julius-Leber-Str. 48 . 

Die Demokratische Gemeinde . (Monatsschrift fur 

Koramunalpolitik in Stadt und Land). Neuer Vorwarts- 
Verlag, Hannover, Odeonstr. 15/16. 

Gleichheit . Das Blatt der arbeitenden Frau (monthly). 
Neuer Vorwarts-Verlag, Hannover, Odeonstr. 15/16. 

Illustrierter Volkskalender (annual). Neuer VorwSrts- 
Verlag, Hannover, Odeonstr. 15/16. 


Official Party Publications 

Sopade—Querschnitt durch Politik und Wirtschaft . 

Sozialdemokratische Parteikorrespondenz (monthly). 

Hannover, Odeonstr. 15/16. 

Sopade Informationsdienst . Sonderdienst (irregular). 
Hannover, Odeonstr. 15A6. 

Sopade Informationsdienst . Denkschrlften (irregular). 
Hannover, Odeonstr. 15/16. 

Sozialistisohe Rundschau. Bielefeld, Amdtstr. 6 . 

Der Jungsozialist . Mitteilungsblatt der Jungsozili- 
stischen Arbeitsgemeinschaften. Bochum, Burgstr. 15. 

Der neue Weg . Mitteilungsblatt der SPD. Bezirk 
Westliches Westfalen. Dortmund, Westenhellweg 51. 

Das frele Wort . Mitteilungsblatt der SPD am Niederr- 
hein. Duesseldorf, Konigsallee 27. 

Kommunalpolitische Rundschau der SPD . Bezirk Hessen- 
SHd.Frankfurt a/M., Bockenheimer Anlage 3. 


- 46 - 





















Per Sozlallst . Mitteilungsblatt der SPD Landes- 
organisation Hamburg. Hamburg 36, Gr. Theaterstr. 
44. 


Arbeit und Freiheit . Informationsblatt der Betriebs- 
gruppen der SPD. Hannover, Odeonstr. 15/16. 

Hessischer Sonntag . SPD Informationen, Ausgabe Hessen- 
Nord. Kassel, Humboldtstr. 8 2/2. 

Per .lunge Sozlaldemokrat . Informations-und Schulungs- 
blatt der Jungsozialisten der Bezirke Rheinland, 
Hessen-Nassau, Rhelnhessen. Koblenz, Florinsmarkt 
2 a. 

Jungsoziallsten-Brief . Mitteilungsblatt fur junge 
Sozialdemokraten. Neustadt a.d.H., Hohenzollemstr. 
16. 

Die Briioke . Das Blatt fhr Heimatvertriebene (fort¬ 
nightly) . Munchen 34, Schackstr. 2. 

Nachrlohtenblatt fur die bavrischen Geme inderate . 

Stadtrate und Kreistagsmitglieder (semi-monthly). 

MCnchen 34, Schackstr. 2. 

Volks-Wirtschaft . Sozialdemokratischer Pressedienst 
(usually weekly). Hannover, Georgstr. 33. 

DMJTgaillgtoa Eregs gflien at s p 

(usually weekly). Hannover, Georgstr. 33. 

* 

Parlamentarisch-Politischer Pressedienst (PPP). 

Fernschreiberdienst, Briefdienst, Informations- 
dienst (daily). Bom/khein, Bundeshaus-Pressehaus. 

Arbeit und Freiheit: Informationsblatter der SPD 

(monthly). Published by Betriebsgruppen-Sekretariat 
heim Vorstand der SPD. Hannover, Odeonstr. 15/16. 

SPD Informationen fur die Fluchtlingsausschiisse der 

Ortsvereine (monthly). Published by Vorstand der 

SPD. Hannover, Odeonstr. 15/16. 

Der SPD Redner—Informationen und Unterlagen . Vorstand 
SPD. Hannover, Odeonstr. 15/l6. 

Merkblatter fgr Frauengruppen (irregular). Vorstand 
der SPD. Hannover, Odeonstr. 15/16. 


- 47 - 

















Informatlons-Rundbrief . Zentralsekretariat der Jung- 
sozialisten (fortnightly). Hannover, Odeonstr. 
15 / 16 . 

Schulungsbrlef . Zentralsekretariat der Jungsozialisten 
(monthly). Hannover, Odeonstr. 15/16. 

Neva from Germany . Published by the Executive 

Committee of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. 
Price: DM 10 per year. Obtainable from Hannover, 
Odeonstr. 15/16; F. Segall, 182 Goldhurst Terrace, 
London NW 6; and Gerhard G. Gerechter, 1449 Boston 
Road, Apt. 42, New York 60, N.Y., U.S.A. 

SPD Nouvelles d^llemagne (monthly). EditAes par le 
comity directeur du parti sociald&nocrate Allemand. 
Hannover, Odeonstr. 15A6. 

SPD News from Germany . Published by the Executive 

Committee of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. 
Hannover, Odeonstr. 15/16. 

Der sozialistische Betrieb . Mitteilungen der 

Konzentration GmbH. Hannover, Odeonstr. 15A6. 


Official Publications.of Regional Party Organizations 

Der Weckruf . (circulation: 50,000). Bezirk Schleswig- 
Holstein, Kiel, Legienstr. 22. 

Politische Rundschau zur Forderung von Demokratie und 

Sozialisaus in Stadt und Land . Ortsverein Iiibeck, 
Backergrube 2. Verlag: Lubecker Freie Presse GmbH, 
Ltlbeck, Dr. Julius-Leber-Str. 48. 

Wille und Weg . Mitteilungsblatt der SPD Hamburg- 
Nordwest, Bezirk Hamburg-Nordwest. Hamburg 1, 

Speersort 1. 

Der Sozlallst . Mitteilungsblatt der SPD Landesorgani- 
sation Hamburg. SPD Landesorganisation Hamburg, 
Hamburg 36, Gr. Theaterstr. 44. 

Politische Rundschau zur Forderung von Demokratie und 

Sozlalismus in Stadt und Land . Kreisverein Kiel, 
Legienstr. 22. 


- 48 - 
















Yon Bundestag , Informationsblatt der Hamburger SP 13- 
Bun de stag-Abgeordneten. Hamburg, Pressehaus, 

Speersort 1. 

Weckruf . Mitteilungsblatt fQr die Betriebsgruppen der 
SPD, Landesorganisation Hamburg. Hamburg 36, Gr. 
Theaterstr. 44. 

Der SPD Funktionaer . Informationsblatt der SPD Bremen. 
SPD Kreisverein, Bremen. Sekretariats An der Weide 

4/5. 

SPD Rundschau . Mitteilungsblatt der SPD Bezirk 
Hannover. SPD Bezirk Hannover, Odeonstr. 15/16. 

SPD Rundbrlef der Arbeltsgemeinschaft verfolgter 

Sozialdemokraten . Herausgeber: SPD, Ortsverein, 
Hannover, Hannover-Linden, Jacobsstr. 10. 

Phsere Meinung . Rundbriefe der Jungsozialisten in der 
SPD-Ortsverein Hannover. Hannover, Jacobsstr. 10. 

Soziallstische Rundschau (monthly). SPD Bezirk ostl. 
Westfalen. Bielefeld, Arndtstr. 6. 

Der Neue Weg . Mitteilungsblatt der SPD Bezirk vestl. 
Westfalen (monthly). SPD Bezirk vestl. Westfalen, 
Dortmund, Westenhellweg 51. 

Der Jungsoziallst . Mitteilungsblatt der Jungsozialis- 
tischen Arbeitsgemeinschaften (monthly). Arbeits- 
gemeinschaft der Jungsozialisten, Dortmund, 
Westenhellweg 51. 

Vertriebenenpost . Mitteilungen fur FlGchtlinge der 
SPD. Bezirk vestl. Westfalen (irregular, monthly). 
Dortmund, Westenhellweg 51. 

Fflr unsere Frauen . Mitteilungen der SPD, Bezirk vestl. 
Westfalen (monthly). Dortmund, Westenhellweg 51. 

Das Signal . Mitteilungsblatt der SPD, Kreisverband 
DGsseldorf und Mettmann. Herausgeber: Kreisverband 
der SPD, DGsseldorf und Mettmann. Dusseldorf, 
Wallstr. 10. 

Der Ruf . Mitteilungsblatt der sozialdemokratischen 
Betriebsgruppen in Gross-Essen. Essen-Steele, Am 
Deimelsberg 16. 

Hessischer Sonntag . SPD Informationen. SPD Hessen- 
Kassel. Kassel, Humboldtstr. 8 l/2. 


49 - 

















Konmnmalpolitische Rundschau fur das Land Hessen . 

SPD Bezirk Hessen-Sued, Frankfurt A/k., Bocken- 

heimer Anlage 3. 

Informationadienst . Informations-, Presse- und 
Kommentardienst. Frankfurt a/k., Bockenheimer 
Anlage 3. 

Per Neue Weg . Das Blatt der Heimatvertriebenen und 
FlQchtlinge in Hessen. Frankfurt A/k., Bocken- 
heimer Anlage 3. 

Sozialdemokratische Presse-Korrespondenz . Informations- 
dienst. Landesverband Bayern der SPD. Miinchen 34, 
Schackstr. 3* 

Der Kochel-Brlef . Mitteilungsblatt der Georg von 
Volkmar-Schule, Schloss Aspenstein, Koche]/Obb. 
Sekretariat der Landesorganisation der SPD, Bayern. 
Miinchen 34, Schackstr. 3. 

Mitteilungsblatt fur die sozialdemokratischen Gemein - 

devertreter Bayerns . Landesausschuss fiir Kommunal- 
politik. Verlag, Das Volk, Miinchen 34, Schackstr. 2. 

Die Brflcke . Das Blatt der Heimatvertriebenen. Landes- 
flHchtlingsaussohuss. Verlag: Das Volk. 

SPD Mitteilungsblatt der Sozialdemokratischen Parted 

ftir die Funktionare . SPD Bezirk Niederbayern- 
Oberpfalz. Regensburg, Rich. Wagner-Str. 4 / 0 . 

Mitteilungsblatt fiir Funktionare der SPD . Herausgeber: 
SPD Bezirk Franken. Nurnberg, Karl Broger Str. 9. 

Der .lunge Sozialdemokrat . Herausgeber: SPD Bezirks- 
sekretariat Rheinland-Hessen-Nassau. Koblenz, 
Florinsmarkt 2a. 

Mitteilungsblatt der SPD Kreis Altenkirchen . 

SPD-Mitteilungen fiir die Funktionare des Landesver- 

bandes Gross-Berlln . SPD Landesverband Gross- 
Berlin. Berlin W. 35, Zietenstr. IB. 

Spandauer Echo . Mitteilungsblatt der SPD, Kreis 8 . 
Herausgeber: Kreisvorstand Spandau. Berlin-Spandau, 
Neuendorferstr. 101. 


- 50 - 


















SPD in Steglltz . Mitteilungsblatt de9 12. Kreises. 
Kreisvorstand der SPD Steglltz. Berlin-Lichter- 
felde-West, Durerstr. 18. 

Weddinger Rundblick . Informationsblatt des 3. 

Kreises der SPD. Kreisgeschaftsstelle Berlin N. 65. 
Amsterdamer Str. 13. 

Zehlendorfer SPD Informatlonen . Kreisvorstand der 
SPD Zehlendorf. Berlin-Zehlendorf, Teltower Damm2. 


Party Publications of Professional Groups 

Arbeitsgemelnschaft sozialdemokratisoher Lehrer ASL . 

Als Manuskript gedruckt nur flir die Mitglieder 
(irregular). Hannover, Am Lohgraben 14. 

Der sozialistische Arzt . Mitteilungen der Arbeits- 
gemeinschaft sozialistischer Aerzte Deutschlands 
(monthly). Zentralsekretariat. Flensburg, 
Duburgerstr. 44-46. 

Das Sozialistische Schrifttum. Mitteilungsblatt der 
Gruppe sozialistisoher Schriftsteller (irregular). 
Editor and Publisher: Hamburg 36, Gr. Theaterstr, 
44. 

Gruppe Sozialistischer Verleger und Buchhandler . 
(irregular). Hannover, Odeonstr. 16.Postfach. 

Junge Gemeinsohaft . Zeitschrift fttr die sozialistische 
Jugend-und Erziehungsarbeit. Verlag Schaffende 
Jugend GmbH., Hannover, Deisterplatz 10 A. 

Neues Beginnen (monthly). Hauptausschuss fiir Arbeiter- 
Wohlfahrt, Hannover, Kiimmelstr. 4; Redaktion: 

Bremen, AM Wall 192. 

Der AW-Heifer (monthly). Arbeiter-Wohlfahrt, Landes- 
verband Bayern. 


Specific other Publications 

Das Volk soil entsohelden l Fur deutsohe Glelchbereohtl - 
spmp i (The people should decide! Equal rights for 
Germany!) Address by Dr. Kurt Schumacher of 
November 8, 1950. 


- 51 - 

















Es glbt nur elne Wahrhelt . (There is only one Truth.) 
Addresses of Dr. Kurt Schumacher and Erich Ollen- 
hauer at the Hamburg party convention, May 1950. 

Sozlaldemokratlsche Wlrtgchaftspolltlk. (Social 

Democratic Economic Policy.) Address by Dr. Hermann 
Veit, Wuerttemberg-Baden Minister of Economics, 
before the party convention in Hamburg, May 1950. 

Die Soslaldemokratle and das Saar-Problem. (Social 
Democracy and the Saar problem.) 

SPD und Grundgesetz. (Social Democracy and the Bonn 
Basic Lav.) 

Das Problem der Oder-Nelsse-Linle . (The Problem of the 
Oder-Neisse Line.) 


52 - 





























































































































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